Pages

Internal sabotage of the Battle for Sanskrit and Sanskriti

Shrikant Talageri made an important contribution to the discussion forum which was turned into an article and posted here. We reproduce the article as is.

Rajiv Malhotra is fighting a battle for all Hindus. It (the battle against western, and specifically American Indologists, academic control of the study and discussion of Indian history, religion and culture) is a battle which has been initiated by him, and he is the only person who has managed to take the battle deep into the enemy territory, given this battle world publicity, and enlisted, organised and united possibly lakhs of Hindus into the actual intellectual battle. I myself would not agree with every single tiny point of analysis made by him on the subject of actual interpretation of the texts, but then:1. Hindu texts are capable of umpteen interpretations, and any interpretation made by him, given that he is an insider to the tradition, has to be accepted as one more of them, and2. Rajiv Malhotra has himself repeatedly pointed out that he is not an expert on Sanskrit, and his job is only to prod a sleeping traditional Indian Sanskrit scholarship to take up the battle.In light of this, particular interpretations made by him, right or wrong, are simply not the issue.

The point is that he is fighting a vital battle for Hindus, Hinduism and Hindu culture, and any so-called Hindu scholar who tries to start a mini-battle with him on the sidelines is very clearly doing it only in order to take the heat off Pollock and his anti-Hindu gang, and to divide Hindus so as to try and sabotage the Hindu side from within at the very source. This is totally unacceptable and unforgivable, and no-one should take this as anything but a sabotage act and should refuse to be a part of this treacherous act, whatever their personal admiration for the “Hindu” scholars attacking Malhotra.

I personally have very great admiration for Shatavadhani Ganesh, and have had friendly correspondence with his co-writer Hari Ravikumar. Their initial article against Malhotra was nevertheless a very bad move which must have had the Hinduphobic American academics involved in this battle in splits of gleeful laughter. Many people felt that the sometimes sharp reaction from many of Malhotra’s supporters further aggravated the situation, but then every action has its equal and opposite reaction. After that, both the sides could have joined hands and fought a united battle. But the vicious articles and writings of people like KalavaiVenkat have muddied the waters to an incredible extent. It appears that K Venkat is indeed determined to see that there is no Hindu unity, and it appears that the only (apparent) motive seems to be to avenge certain grudges from the past where he feels Malhotra failed to give due importance to suggestions made by him!

It must be remembered that Malhotra has never in any of his books or articles in general targeted other writers fighting for Hinduism, and certainly never at a point of time when they were fighting for the Hindu cause. So this attack on him is totally and absolutely an unprovoked and unforgivable one. While it is true that Malhotra has been fighting an unceasing battle since years, and must have been badly in need of a rest or a sabbatical, I feel this present temporary withdrawal by him from active participation is a reaction caused by deep personal mental mortification caused by these unprovoked and lethal attacks on him by people who should have been supporting him, and I can only hope and pray that we do not lose this battle for Sanskrit even before it starts in full swing because of internal (and not Leftist or Secularist but “Hindu”) sabotage!

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed here by bloggers here are personal and do not reflect those of their current or previous associates and employers. Comments are largely un-moderated, and neither reflect the views of, nor are endorsed, by the administrators or bloggers of this website.